OPAL IRENE FLEMING

JOPLIN- Services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Ferry Funeral Home in Nevada for Opal Irene Fleming, 91, Joplin, a previous longtime resident of Nevada, Mo., who died Tuesday, March 13, 2018, while a patient at Mercy Hospital in Springfield. She had been in good health until recently and died peacefully of natural causes. Her son, Brian L. Fleming, will officiate. Burial will be at Newton Burial Park in Nevada.

Visitation will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, at the funeral home.

To continue her support to the Alzheimer’s Association, memorial contributions may be made in honor of her late husband and friends in care of Ferry Funeral Home, 301 South Washington Street, Nevada, Mo. 64772.

The obituary may be viewed and condolences sent online at www.ferryfuneralhome.com.

Survivors include her six children, Thomas R. Fleming and wife Audrey, St. Louis, James E. Fleming and Linda McClain, Brookline, Mass., Nancy K. Lies and husband Kenneth, Albuquerque, N.M., Brian L. Fleming, Webb City, Charles A. Fleming, Springfield and Patricia D. Scott and husband Brendan, Springfield; nine grandchildren, Rachel Fleming, Chattanooga, Tenn., Sarah and Katherine Fleming, Brookline, Mass., Emily Lies, Albuquerque, N.M., Katherine Lies, Brooklyn, NY, Micah and Samuel Fleming, Webb City and Brenna and Alison Scott, Springfield and one sister, Aileen L. Jinkens, Keokuk, Iowa.

She was preceded in death by a brother, James H. McNally; three sisters, Wilma R. McNally, Lola F. Eder and Waneta L. Smith and two grandchildren, Thomas Adam Fleming and John Isaac Fleming.

Mrs. Fleming was born Jan. 8, 1927, in Kahoka, to Ralph L. and Edna Opal (Ingram) McNally. When she was nine years old her mother died and she moved to Oakland, Calif. to live with relatives, graduating from high school there. Her father remarried, to Myra Egley. After graduating from high school she returned to Kahoka to live with her family until going to college.

She graduated from University of Missouri-Columbia, where she majored in Home Economics, in 1951. While at MU, she met Thomas E. Fleming, who was also a student there. The two were married in Columbia on December 22, 1951. She was a Home Economics teacher at several high schools, including Nevada High School and El Dorado Springs High School. Her husband was a soil conservation agent and farmer in the Nevada area. For many years they lived on a farm on K Highway, southeast of Nevada, before moving to a farm along Highway 71 near Lamar. They were married for over 55 years when he died March 21, 2007, at the age of 90. In recent years, she had lived in an independent living apartment at College View Manor in Joplin.